#but mostly stressful

[anxiety-banana]

help i just made a big girl purchase for something very logical and helpful in my everyday life that has become a necessity and is perfectly normal to repurchase now that my old one has broken but yet. panik

[muffinlance]

My baby daughter got her adorable puffin-print dress absolutely CAKED in mud crawling around the yard and my first thought was "oh no her beautiful dress"

And my second thought was "oh huh it really WOULD be easy to unconsciously steer her away from playing in the dirt. Unlike my son, whose outfits are usually some kind of solid dark easily washed pants plus a shirt that doesn't trail in the dirt like a dress does."

Anyway something something gender roles start getting shoved on kids from literal birth, but with a little time to think about things, YOU TOO can let your children of any gender absolutely destroy their clothes in the dirt pit they're digging in your garden

[deaddriv]

Translated with permission!!

Here's the author's Twitter (achu_0u0) and the original post!

Note from author: Wouldn't it be hard for half-foots to go to the movie theater?

[wanologic]

always good to keep a screamhole handy

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[mewguca]

rough scugerator concepts

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

normal day at the future foundation

[adaines-furious-feast]

Bucky was always a little jealous of the attention Kristen got, until she leaves.

After she leaves he realises, oh, she hasn't slept alone in bed since Bricker was five because either he or Cork would crawl into her bed when they had nightmares. And she had to hold off on healing herself sometimes because -3 dex runs in the family and she had save spell energy for if Cork tripped and fell down the stairs again. And wow did he never realise just how hard it was to take verses from the Corn Bible and use them to stop their parents going on and on until their shouting at Bricker for something Bucky knows he tried in the past and Kristen came to his defence.

[heph]

Wilson is constantly in a state of mild rage (because of House) in this show 🤔

[necrotic-nephilim]

as much as I love the common "Tim worships/stalks Jason" trope in TimJay fanfiction because it's Good and making Tim a weird little freak is Fun, I think the underutilized dynamic is where Jason is the one weirdly obsessed with Tim and makes it Tim's problem.

Like, the moment Jason is confronted with the information that a third Robin exists, the first thing he does is cover his wall with pictures of Tim so he can just obsess and torture himself over it. That is the behavior of a man who is Unwell over Tim's existence and I love it.

red hood: lost days #4

And as much as a shitshow as The Titans Tower Incident™ is characterization-wise (though I think it has far more merit in depicting Jason's character than people give it credit for but I digress-) there's something very fun about the fact that even after kicking his ass, Jason respects Tim and is impressed by him.

teen titans (2003) #29

And on top of that, Jason can't seem to stop trying to ask Jason to Tim to work with him in some capacity.

robin (1993) #177

batman: battle for the cowl #2

While Battle for the Cowl is an exceptionally bad comic, especially for its characterization of Jason and the "be my Robin" bit is taken deeply out of context, I do think it's interesting how obsessed Jason is with believing that Tim is extremely competent, only held back by being "brainwashed by Bruce". (hence him leaving Tim for dead later on in the comic.) Jason seeing a darker side of Tim and wanting to bring that out of Tim, wanting to see what Tim could be if he let go of his loyalty to Bruce is so fun to me, tbh.

And in Robin #177, Jason seems genuinely upset Tim doesn't want to work with him. Jason sees such a raw potential in Tim and is obsessed with it, constantly wanting Tim to work for him and see Tim be the type of person Jason is. And despite Tim rejecting him, Jason doesn't shoot to kill Tim. I just cannot get over the fanfic potential of Jason obsessing over Tim, tracking him and seeing what he's capable of and what he could be capable of. Wanting to make Tim see things the way he does. To Tim it's corruption, to Jason it's freedom. Tim trying to 'save' Jason is fun and all, but Jason trying to corrupt Tim? That's even more fun to me. Watching that power struggle between them, Tim unable to get Jason off his heels as Jason gets more and more possessive and bold with each attempt.

And when Jason sees Tim successfully get Gotham back under control after a gang war, he's impressed. He praises Tim, even. And then Tim just. Breaks him out of prison.

robin (1993) #182

The way they're constantly trying to see something in the other that isn't there, hoping the other will come around? That is the most fucked up hate/love dynamic ever. Jason keeps coming back to Tim, keeps trying to find ways to get Tim onto his side. They're always chasing each other. And I think Jason would be the one to confess love first, the one to do anything to make Tim his. And when you consider after all of this, Tim has his Red Robin arc and is at his lowest, getting the closest he ever gets to considering murder? I think it'd be so fun to see Jason take advantage of that and worm his way back into Tim's life and finally push Tim over the edge.

[melimelotus]

properly working on a character that mostly existed inside my head. i'm naming it sureau (elderflower)

[luxaofhesperides]

Can I please have meet cute/weird with mistaken villain! Danny (but really just a engineer and or chem student) and the one being put on investigation cause Danny is a day villain(not really)! Duke

Technically, Danny Fenton is innocent. Technically. 

Duke wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he’s having so much trouble finding solid evidence that Danny is stealing from a wide variety of people, but he’s been burned before by trying to see people as better than they were. It doesn’t change the fact that Oracle’s cameras keep spotting Danny right before a building on the street is broken into and something stolen. He’s always just walking down the sidewalk; no one has spotted him entering or exiting a building, but he’s around far too often to be unconnected to these burglaries. 

It doesn’t help that strange, petty crimes have been on the rise since Danny first arrived in Gotham. 

So.

Danny Fenton is technically innocent.

Duke is trying to prove that he’s not. 

Maybe I’m looking too closely, he thinks, going over Danny’s sparse file in the Hatch. Maybe Danny’s only one person in a bigger operation.

He could just be the lookout, the runner, the information gatherer who marks which buildings to hit. He may even be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb; Danny has no support in Gotham, no family, no job. There would be no one to help him if he got arrested or injured in a fight. He’s a freshman college student from Illinois who should be unprepared for life in Gotham but is somehow managing to survive like a native. 

There’s a lot about Danny that doesn’t add up. 

Duke has seen plenty of different people since he first went out as the Signal. He’s tried to be kind and give people the benefit of the doubt, but it leads to his loved ones being put in danger. Some people are truly evil, some working on a malicious agenda, some are misguided in their beliefs, and some are desperate people who see no other way to move forward.

He’s not sure yet which on Danny is, but he’s hoping Danny is just desperate and needs a little help to get out of a life of crime.

Which leads to the next problem: Duke has no idea what Danny is steal, or why. He hits both rich and poor folks, civilians and members of the mob, and once, notably, stole something right out of Cobblepot’s office. Allegedly, at least, since no one saw him enter or exit the office, not even the security cameras. 

But added to the whispers going around about a new group in Gotham snatching people up from the streets, and some strange green substances found in warehouses often raided by police for the frequent drug labs that pop up in them… 

It doesn’t look good for Danny. Especially when a few of the items he stole were found where people either vanished or where that green substance has been found.

A week of analysis in the Batcave and they still don’t know what it is. 

Both Damian and Jason suspected Lazarus water, but the composition was completely different. By the look of the molecular structure, it shouldn’t have been in a liquid form at all. 

All these findings lead back to one person who may have answers: Danny Fenton.

According to Tim, who’s already broken into Danny’s dorm room and checked over all the labs he has classes in, Danny has some concerning items in his possession. Various inventions and little metal knick-knacks put together by a practiced hand. He was also the one to find all the information that went into Danny’s file when it was first being made: social media posts, school report cards, news articles about his parents… everything. 

And then he had an emergency mission to take with the Titans that swept him out of Gotham leaving Duke to tackle this investigation on his own. 

He doesn’t have Tim’s natural skill in stalking and invading privacy. He hates breaking into people’s spaces and following them around, but needs must and he has to force himself to work through the discomfort. 

It’s a good thing he did, too. Danny’s leaving his dorm after his last afternoon class, hood up to hide his face and something held in the front pocket of his hoodie. He ducks around people on the sidewalk easily, almost as if he’s gliding through the crowd instead of walking. 

Duke follows from above, bending the light around him to hide him from sight. 

He walks for some time, weaving through alleys and streets as if he’s been in Gotham his whole life, leaving behind the university campus to head towards Otisberg. There’s something strange about the way Danny walks, as if he’s moving around people who aren’t there, guided by something Duke can’t hear. Even using his meta abilities doesn’t do much beyond show him where Danny’s going to be in the next few seconds. 

He continues to follow Danny on the rooftops, walking along the edge to keep him in sight. 

Then Danny stops behind an apartment building and tilts his head back to look up at it. He tilts his head to the side, then nods and looks around the empty alley. Duke crouches down, keeping his eyes on Danny in the hopes of catching him in the act—

Danny disappears.

Duke curses under his breath and jumps down from the roof, putting more strength into his abilities as soon as his feet touch the ground. 

The space where Danny was has a faint outline, oddly enough. He’s never seen that before. From it is a semi-transparent trail, smoke-like and a pale green leading into the building. It goes straight into a wall, as if Danny walked through it.

He can’t go in and search the entire apartment, but he can grapple up and take a look into the hallways to see where Danny’s heading. If he was looking up, then that’s where he should be heading. 

It doesn’t take any effort to scale the building. There are ledges and windowsills and plenty of handholds for him to propel himself off of, and paired with his powers, Duke is able to find the correct floor in just under two minutes. 

The green smoke slowly dances through the air of the ninth floor, on the east side of the building. If he’s been counting the rooms correctly, then the target of tonight’s burglary has to be apartment 924. 

The curtains are drawn on the window he makes his way over to, and his abilities don’t show him anything helpful for the immediate future. He hates going in blind, especially to a civilian’s home, but capturing Danny takes priority. Duke picks the lock and slides the window up slowly, making sure it stays quiet, then slips into an empty bedroom. 

He makes his way out into the hallway on silent feet, keeping a wary eye on the thin smoke strands of green, curling along the walls. The rest of the apartment is empty as well, pale sunlight slanting across the floor through the blinds. 

Everything is still and silent. Danny’s nowhere to be found. 

Did he miss Danny leaving, somehow? Was this a misdirect to get him out of the way while Danny stole from another location? Did he know Duke was following him?

But no, his ears pick up on the faint sound of clothes rustling. 

Cautiously, Duke turns towards the front door, where the door to the coat closet is open. He focuses on what’s going to happen in the next twenty seconds and sees Danny panic, then disappear from sight again, but a transparent outline of his body is visible just enough to show him where he runs to. Best not to spook him; Duke pulls at the light around him and bends it to hide him from sight.

Then he moves along the wall, getting around the open door without bumping into anyone or anything. 

A figure in front of the coats, shoving them to the side roughly, flickers in and out of view, almost like a reflection in water, distorted by ripples on the surface. 

Danny pops back into visibility suddenly, scowling at the coats. “Are you sure it’s in here?” he asks the empty air. 

There is no answer, but Danny acts like there is. He rolls his eyes and says, “It’s a favor. That I’m doing for you. I can literally stop right now and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” He shoves aside another heavy winter coat, then sighs. “Why don’t you look for it, and then tell me where it is.”

He steps back and bumps into Duke.

Danny whirls around, eyes wide, and blast of green light has Duke crashing back into the wall, trying to blink spots out of his eyes. 

“Wait!” he yells, grabbing for Danny before he can run off. “I just wanna talk!”

“Standing right behind me like a serial killer does not make you look like someone who wants to talk!” Danny yells back, slipping through his hands like mist. 

“I just have a few questions!”

“Well, I have a question: why?!”

“Will you hold still, we’re being too loud!”

Danny escapes to the other side of the apartment, next to a window looking fully prepared to fling himself out of it. But he does stop yelling, so Duke is counting it as a success.

“Why is the Signal coming after me?” Danny asks, glaring at him suspiciously.

“Dude,” Duke says, “You’ve been seen outside of every single building that’s had a burglary since you first arrived in Gotham. All the Bats are after you, they just sent me because I’m the only one active during the day.”

“All the Bats?” Danny repeats, losing what little color he had in his face.

He looks legitimately scared, pale enough to be concerning, and Duke drops his guard and tries to relax the tension in the apartment. “I’m not gonna turn you into the cops or anything. I just had questions and you seem like the most likely person to have answers. That’s it.”

Danny still looks wary, ready to run at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t leave when Duke approached casually, leaning his weight against the couch. 

“So,” he begins, “What’s the deal with all the thievery? It’s rarely something super rare or expensive.”

There’s a long few minutes where Danny doesn’t answer, looking anywhere but at Duke. Then he twitches a bit and glares off to the side, and says, “I taking items that are contaminated with ectoplasm to help ghosts move through the veil and leave Gotham.”

That tells him nothing! That just gives Duke more questions! But at least it’s an answer, the first one any of them have got.

“I think you’re gonna have to explain a little more.”

“Ghosts are real, alright?”

“Yes.”

Danny stops. Squints at him. “What do you mean, ‘yes’?”

“Ghosts are real,” Duke repeats, “There are a few who help heroes or are heroes themselves, but that’s more on the magic side of things so I’m not super familiar with it.”

“Magic,” Danny says slowly. “Sure, alright. Um. Yes, ghosts are real. And there are a ton in Gotham who need help moving on, but they’re too weak to get past the veil. Something about Gotham has made the veil super strong, so they need a little boost to get through. Additional ectoplasm bonded helps with that.”

“And that’s why you’re stealing random things?”

“The ghosts I help can kind of sense ectoplasm-infused things, but they need me to grab them since they can’t hold anything without a physical body.”

Duke nods slowly. “Okay, that’s starting to answer some things. We have found those objects in the last places missing people were seen. Any idea what’s going on with that?”

“Yeah, those people were already dead.”

The way Danny says the most concerning answers as if they’re nothing is really throwing Duke off his game. He was expecting to be calm and serious to keep Danny from freaking out too much and look like a legitimate hero. But as soon as Danny started talking, all his nerves fell away and Duke is left grasping for composure. 

“They were…”

“They were ghosts, yeah. And they needed to get through the veil. But they were also able to possess their own bodies and didn’t realize they were dead until I had to break the news to them, which is why it looks like living people just up and disappeared.”

“Okay… What about the green stuff we’ve been finding?”

“Ectoplasm.” Danny holds up a hand and a neon green light surrounds it. Except it looks more solid than light, as if it can be touched, and it moves on its own like fire around Danny’s fingers. “It’s what ghosts are made of.”

Oh. If Danny has ectoplasm, does that mean…

“Are you dead?” Duke asks, heart dropping. 

Instead of looking upset about the question, or even disturbed by it, Danny just shrugs and waves his hand back and forth. “A little.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Duke says, trying to resist the urge to rub his temples. It’s a habit he didn’t mean to pick up from Batman, and it would just look silly with his helmet in the way. “You’re just doing all this to help ghosts?”

“Yeah. Basically. They asked for help man, of course I was going to help them.”

Danny’s a good person. He’s just a good person to ghosts. But this is good news either way, and he can let the others know that Danny isn’t the next Catwoman and is entirely unconnected from any drug production. Everything that made him look like a criminal is just the fault of ghosts. 

“Speaking of,” Danny continues, “Looks like they found what they need, so I’m going to grab that real quick.” He pushes off of the wall and heads for the closet again, moving past Duke without any fear. Duke follows, keeping a few feet of distance between them so Danny doesn’t feel trapped, and watches as he shoves aside the coats again and pulls a shoebox out of the depths of the closet. From it, he takes a single intricate lace headband and holds it up.

It looks normal, if a little old, but when Danny sends ectoplasm through it, the lace lights up and holds the glow. 

He pulls some strange contraption out of his pocket and holds it up to the headband. It makes a few beeps, then Danny mutters, “7.4 millisieverts. That’s enough to get you through the veil.”

Another concern Duke can let go of: Danny’s not creating weapons like his parents have, he’s just measuring ectoplasm through his own inventions. 

Maybe he could talk to Bruce or Tim about getting Danny an internship at the R&D lab in Wayne Enterprises? That way they could keep a closer eye on him while seeing what he can create in some of the best laboratories in the country.

Well, it might take having them meet Danny before they trust him enough for that, but Duke is sure he can make it happen. 

“I better go see this through, then,” Danny says, shoving the contraption back into his hoodie pocket. He gives Duke a small awkward wave, then pops out of visibility. “I’ll see you around, I guess?” he disembodied voice hedges, and Duke smiles.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find you again.”

“Cool. I gonna go now!” 

He doesn’t see any sign that Danny’s left, but he gets a feeling that he’s alone now, the apartment suddenly emptier than it was before. 

As strange and concerning as Danny and all his bizarre actions were, Duke is glad he was able to finally talk to him and get some answers. Knowing how Gotham pulls people him in, it’s only a matter of time before the other Bats are exposed to Danny’s kind of strange. He’s already looking forward to it. 

For now, though, he has a file to update in the Hatch; POTENTIAL THREAT will be removed and replaced with GHOST HELPER. 

If anyone goes snooping into his files and gets confused, then that’s their problem. Duke’s explained enough. And Danny can take care of the rest, once they go through the effort of tracking him down. Duke's done his part, he's ready for the rest of them to step up to his level.

He can’t wait to see what other kind of trouble Danny can get it into.

[ren-144p]

something about the first few episodes of the terror having so many numbers. the men, the provisions, the inventory; but also the tension of counting. the scene where goodsir takes a picture of john franklin and his men and he's counting down the seconds. the lashes being counted down during hickey's punishment. and something about how in later episodes, numbers get lost. dates get forgotten. counting just stops. all of it becomes insignificant. like it was a countdown at first but now the time is just running out instead

[starry-bi-sky]

I'm in A Mood™ (stressed) so im going back to my roots of melting two character together into one person. So bruce wayne!danny fenton. Danny Fenton who, for eight years, grew up in a beautiful gothic manor with his mom and dad under the name "Bruce Wayne". Playing piano with his mother, running around the manor with his father.

Then when he's eight it's ripped away from him. There's blood on his hands and pearls pooling at his feet, and both his parents are dead in front of him.

And he gets shipped off to distant relatives "the Fentons" shortly after, Alfred close on his heels because someone needs to take care of him, someone that knows him. Bruce goes to the Fentons for the safety of anonymity. Gotham's press wants to sink its teeth into him.

Danny misses his city even if it took everything from him. There are shadows in his eyes and he's pale as a sheet even beside his distant cousins, and they change his name to "Danny Fenton' because nobody should know that their newest child was illustrious orphan Bruce Wayne.

They call him Bruce behind closed doors. Danny prefers it that way, he clings onto the name -- the one his parents gave him -- like a lifeline. He makes friends with Sam and Tucker. Tucker takes one look at the willowy, morbid little boy standing in the corner like a shade, ghosts in his eyes, and drags him out into the sunlight, and takes him over to Sam.

When Danny is twelve, he's still not over it -- and he's a little obsessed with the Fentons' research, with the morbid. He has books upon books on death, murder, detective work. Anything he can get his hands on. And stars. He loves stars.

Alfred owns the apartment next to them and comes over regularly. Danny clings to him.

When Danny is twelve, he's still quiet, meek, a shy little thing prone to being bullied. Freaky little Fenton with the night in his eyes and too-cold skin even before he put one foot in the grave. in a sleepover in his room with Sam and Tucker, he tells them the truth. They're his friends, he trusts them.

"My name is Bruce." he murmurs, voice quiet as the breeze, always quiet. he's staring at his star-covered sheets.

"Like Bruce Wayne?" Tucker asks, a joking tone in his voice.

Danny smiles a little, lamb-like with insecurity. "I am Bruce Wayne." And he takes them down to the lab, disrupting Maddie and Jack, to prove it. Sam tells them of her own wealth then shortly after. They start calling Danny "Bruce" in private too -- its trust. Thats what it is. It's trust.

Sam goes to media functions and comes back with aching feet and complaints on her tongue -- and Danny soaks it up all like a sponge, splayed across a beanbag chair with Tucker in her room. He's not envious of her, he used to go to events with his parents and they kept him safe from the ugly of Gotham's Elite. For the most part. He's had comments made at him, he doesn't miss them.

Alfred returns to the manor semi-regularly, Danny goes with him. he wanders the hallways and helps Alfred clean, the last thing either of them want is for their home to fall into disrepair. He brings Jazz with him next time, then Tucker, then Sam. They all help him clean, and he shows them his room. The one across from his parents', it feels strange.

When Danny dies when he's fourteen, the first adult he tells is Alfred. He and Jazz go over to his house more often than they stay in the Fentonworks building. At least at Alfred's, the food doesn't come to life. Alfred sits at the kitchen table and weeps when Danny tells him, Jazz is upstairs, and its just the two of them.

Danny's ghost form wears pearls around his wrist and the gloves look stained with some kind of black substance. He looks like a child who died in a lab accident, but he also looks like a child who has shadows dripping off his shoulders, curling at his feet, hanging from his eyes.

because amorphous blob batman has my heart always and danny/bruce will not escape it even in death even if that IS the only reason im giving him Mild BatBlob Vibes...so far

when they go to the manor, alfred helps danny make a pile of stones between Martha and Thomas' graves, nobody but the two of them (and sam and tucker) will know what it means. (not even bruce's children later down the line, not for a long, long time)

danny dives into ghost fighting on shaky feet and not half as witty as he once was in one world. he's skittish, skittering between blasts from shadow to shadow and clumsily making his way through each battle. but helping people lights a fire in him. he still has shadows dripping off his feet but there's a purpose in his eyes.

and god help him, he's going to help people.

[heartsfortwotpot]

i call two my “missus” because i missus them

[sarcasticmothdraws]

I'm back on my meds but due to the few days hault in between I feel icky. so im just drawing whatever sticks.